we will take your calls, and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" is next. host: this is "washington journal." congress is halfway through a two-week break. that does not mean members are not hearing about impeachment from their constituents. we will show you some of the town hall events that have been taking place where impeachment up.come from you, if you talk to your commerce person about impeachment, what would you tell him or her?

republicans (202) 748-8001. tweet us @cspanwj. our facebook page is facebook.com/cspan. here is a recent story out of hartwick township, michigan. constituents said they were growing to like u.s. representative elizabeth flocking until she supported the impeachment inquiry. marshall to 61% of the vote and the surrounding county. said congress has responsibly for determining whether the president should be removed from office for asking before leader investigate joe biden. [video clip] >> a week ago monday, myself and

six other members of the freshman class of congress, all former military or former cia, wrote an op-ed in support of the inquiry. >> [booing] [applause] >> i knew that it was going to be an issue here at home. i made that decision because sometimes there are moments in life that are beyond politics, and i felt this moment was that. [applause] >> a foreign leader and asked

him to dig up dirt on an american. [yelling] host: the new york times this morning looks at the house republican side when it comes to the issue of impeachment. the headline, as evidence mounts against the president, some republicans keep their distance. the newspapers declared he was breaking ranks, conservative constituents branded him as a traitor. toshort order he was forced explain himself to the trump campaign's political director and the acting white house chief of staff. what the heck are you doing? it is not only taking place on the house side. joni ernst on the senate side held a recent town hall, which you can see on our website.

here is a little bit of the back-and-forth on impeachment. [video clip] >> i cannot speak for him. >> i know you cannot speak for him. you can speak for yourself. >> i do. i have sent this time and time again. north korea is not our friend. russia not our friend. i have made that clear. the president knows where we stand on those issues. >> what about the whistleblower? >> i have already said that. whistleblower should be protected. i stand with chuck grassley on this. we have lost in place. >> we are not hearing it. >> that is because our media is not covering those issues. >> you have to say it so it will be covered. >> whistleblowers should be protected. please let folks out there. >> our president should not be andacking them

encouraging other countries to investigate his political rivals. >> corruption wherever it is should be ferreted out. if there is corruption in other countries, and i have traveled in ukraine. i have visited -- i have not visited with the new president. many years ago, i had the opportunity to meet the former president. in ukraine, there is still a large amount of corruption. they have tried to deal with that corruption. they need to continue dealing with corruption. i don't care where it is. i don't care who it is. corruption should be combated. two exchanges on the topic of impeachment. if you have a chance to talk to your legislator, what would you tell him or her about impeachment? (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. youru want to text us

thoughts this morning. you can do so at (202) 748-8003. if you are on the line, please hold. you can start calling in with your thoughts. as we do that, we will talk to anita kumar with politico. thank you for joining us. anita kumar, are you there? guest: i am. host: thank you for joining us. what is the strategy from the white house concerning impeachment? guest: that is a great question. we have not seen a lot of strategy. the president is kind of doing his own thing, and staff is trying to figure out what to do. there have been several meetings where they have talked about this to come up with a plan. mostly what we are seeing at this point is the president is coming out multiple times a day, giving his account of what

happened, why it is ok, somewhat changing his reasons for doing it here and there. this week, he will travel to minneapolis to give his first campaign rally since the impeachment great started. this is -- inquiry started. this is a democratic city. it will be interesting. host: we saw the present call put anaker policing to official houseboat on record. who is behind that move? who is advising him on this? has saide president that and members of the republican party have said that. i think the republicans feel they want to go ahead and have the houseboat to put those -- house vote to put those vulnerable democrats in the country on record. republicans are saying they

don't have to turn over documents. they don't have to have people testify. they don't have to do anything differently until the house votes. democrats and many experts i have talked to on impeachment disagree with that and say an official vote does not have to happen. the house democrats still have the authority to get information and get people to testify. this is one of those lines where both sides are probably going to end up in court. host: we saw the president go after senator mitt romney because of his criticisms. what would you say is the relationship between the president and the republicans on the senate side and the house? guest: you have still mostly seen, mitt romney and a couple of others beside, you have mostly seen republicans on capitol hill fall in line with the president. they are sticking by him or not criticizing him.

i think he still feels he has that strong support. if you look at recent polls, he has about 80% of republican support across the country. his campaign has gotten a lot of money since the impeachment inquiry started. they are still feeling pretty good with that republican support. oft: beside the topic impeachment, what about the agenda from the white house? has that come to a standstill? are there other efforts on matters? guest: those issues, a lot of these would have been problematic anyway. we have not heard so much about the gun legislation we were talking about a month ago. that seems to not have completely gone away, but a lot of people are skeptical that could get done. immigration, the same thing. the whiteing i hear house and immigrants and

republicans talk about is usmca. both sides still want to work on that. congress needs to take that up. you are seeing vice president mike pence pushing that. another thing that has not gotten a lot of attention is that the u.s. and china are starting trade negotiations again. these trade negotiations stalled earlier this year. both countries are slapping tariffs on goods. that is the reason a lot of products are going up in cost. there is another deadline, october 15, where there will be increased tariffs again. that they are sitting down and talking is a big deal. the president still says he is not going to accept a small deal. who: this is anita kumar, reports on the white house. her writing can be found on politico.com. guest: thank you for having me. host: what would you tell your

congressperson about impeachment? (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. florida, you are up first. what would you tell your congressperson? caller: i just want to ask my congressman to investigate trump , ukraine, australia, and other countries if they are for biden. now he is asking china. the list goes on and on. he needs to be impeached. nixon did just 10% or way less than trump, and he was going to be impeached. nixon was a lawyer, and he knew laws.

trump thinks he is above the law. host: what would specifically you want your legislator to do on impeachment? what should be investigated? countriesmean asking he asked russia, remember, 2016, about hillary in on nationalemails television. of godsake, he is afraid biden. he will investigate anybody. host: that is joe in florida. texas, this is rodney. caller: i called my congressman, and they said we are going to make an announcement today. i thought i would wait. he is retiring. the that tells me is republicans that are retiring,

they don't want to stand up to that man. what i was going to tell mr. thornberry and all the other republicans, ted cruz and john cornyn, they need to grow some balls and stand up to this guy. he is nothing but a mafia guy. i think his dad was in the mafia. host: when it comes down to impeachment, what do you want your legislator to look at? caller: look at what he has just done. look at what he did with his first election with russia and the ties to russia. there is a whole list of things and noney can get in of these republicans are standing up to him. host: for the congresspeople that you called, what was the response you got aside from mr. thornberry and his retirement announcement?

--st: caller: i called the senators, and all you do is get voicemail. host: let's go to north carolina, republican line. hi. caller: hi. host: you are on. go ahead. if ir: i would like to say could get in contact with my congressman or senator, i would tell them i am a lifetime republican, and the only reason i am still a republican is to vote every single one of them out if they don't vote for impeachment of this sorry president. host: why is it that you are encouraging your legislators to do so? caller: because half the country does not understand the constitution. excuse me. i went to a school that taught the constitution, and it is such a crime against the very

foundation of what we are supposed to be doing. host: what has the president done that has piloted the constitution that is worthy of impeachment? caller: he has gone to a foreign government for support, not to --andn all of the everything else. host: let's go to angie in pennsylvania, republican line. hello. caller: hi. i would just like to say any former cia agent is not entitled to any protection under law, the whistleblower, because they did work for the government as a secret agent. they are really lining up for protections that are not entitled to them but the general public that comes in contact

with information that may be detrimental to the government. as far as the so-called impeachment process, the house has to vote because otherwise it becomes a smear campaign for the democratic party. the congressional members must vote and submit it to the senate for approval or rejection. that is the process. host: is that what you are telling your legislator? have you told your legislator about this? is knowny legislator as a sanctuary state mentality, which is really against republican ideology. service everyone who wants to be serviced. to be serviced as an american citizen, you must desire to be an american citizen or become a naturalized citizen. host: that is angie in

pennsylvania giving her thoughts . if you go to the congressional research service, they have a publication about the impeachment process. here is what it says. impeachment for sittings are initiated in the house. a resolution calling for the impeachment of an officer would be referred to the judiciary committee. an investigation would be referred to the rules committee. in either case, the committee could authorize the investigation. committees have sometimes sought information against officers prior to the adoption of the resolution to authorize an impeachment investigation. if you go to the congressional research service, you can learn more about the process. this is amy off of our facebook page saying when it comes to

what she would say to a legislator, if you impeach our president, there will be hell to pay. if they want a civil war, that is what they get. another person saying, i would ask my congressman to hold our president responsible. representative condemn why he does not president trump for asking a foreign leader to investigate a political rival? if the president were a democrat, would he feel the same way? if you are texting us this morning to make sure you put your name and where you are from , city and state, in those texts. (202) 748-8003. john is in florida, independent line. we'll would you say to your legislator? caller: i would first have to take the duct tape off of my

head listening to some of these idiotic callers. in my never heard so much life. i have to thank you for asking that woman exactly what did the president violate in the constitution. when she answered, she could not give you an answer. there is one branch of government that is allowed to deal with foreign nations, and that is the executive branch. why peopleerstand cannot grasp this concept. the president is allowed to speak to foreign nations. he is allowed to ask for help if you feels a crime has been committed. joe biden is on tape admitting to the crime he committed. what did president trump say? can you do me a favor? there is a huge difference

between someone saying i want you to fire a prosecutor that is investigating my son's company. host: i apologize. you would tell your legislator don't proceed with impeachment. caller: i was a democrat for 35 years. i cannot believe what has happened to that party. sothey want to lower the bar low that we are going to go through this every time a president gets elected, impeachment talks from the republican side the next time a democrat gets elected. this has become a joke. when nancy pelosi says there has been no precedent for her to take a vote, we have gone through three impeachments, and they have all taken a vote before the impeachment process began. when they cannot even say congressman schiff was wrong when he made up a story he read at his hearing, made up a

ammary, he was not reading transcript. host: before we go to the other people, i want to show you the thoughts and remarks from senator marco rubio recently in florida on this topic of impeachment. [video clip] >> do you think it is ok for president trump to ask china to launch an investigation into joe biden? >> i don't know that was a real request. theink he was just needling press. he is good about getting people fired up. he has been doing that pretty well. the media responded right on task. >> you are one of the loudest critics of china and its human rights abuses. do you think it is ok to ask? >> i don't think it is a real request. i think he did it to provoke you. he plays it like a violin, and

everyone falls into it. that is not a real request. host: david in new york, independent line. caller: hi. i find it strange that during , theact-finding of this inquiry itself, when we have the facts and the man has confessed if there is any doubt of his guilt, that when it does reach the senate for a vote, any senator that refuses to vote in the affirmative for impeachment would be in violation of their oath of office. host: you will tell your legislator what? caller: impeach. he is an unindicted co-conspirator. he has from the indictments pending. host: i will ask you the same. as far as the level of high --mes and missed demeanors

misdemeanors, where does that fall into the specifics of where the president should be impeached? caller: my technical definition, he has not reached treason yet because we are not at declared war. the fact that we keep referring ar, andr warfare as a w he is encouraging our enemies to keep on pelting us, i think we are getting very close. we have bribery, and we have high crimes and misdemeanors covered. i think he is going for the whole gamut. he wants to be number one. let's be number one on the first official impeachment. host: where do you find bribery? he has offered our money coming using our cash in the missiles that he was withholding . .hat is obvious

he is withholding something of value for something of value. host: jarrett in new york, republican line. caller: if you ask anyone who knows me, i am not the most road town guy. i supported the russia inquiry. nothing came out of it. i am sick and tired of hearing after inquiry after inquiry. i am 19 years old. we have a lot more things to worry about from the social security that is going to be bankrupt and medicare that is going to be bankrupt. we are talking about something that doesn't seem to have happened. host: when you hear republican senators like mitt romney and ben sasse expressing concerns does that issues, change your mind or sway you ?

>> we have investigated everything. i don't think he could coordinate between one foot and the next. cuts.uld focus on the tax that is an amazing achievement. we should focus on that. the economy is doing great. we are focusing on impeachment, and that is a shame. host: have you had a chance to tell your legislator about these concerns? listen to me.ever this is a democratic district. my concerns don't matter. host: we are asking you on what you would tell you are congressperson on impeachment. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents. for if you want to text us, you can do so at (202) 748-8003.

kay in connecticut, democrats line. hi. caller: hi. host: go ahead. you are on. what would you tell your congressperson about impeachment? say, he isould just out of control. whatever comes to without any kind of filter. host: how does that relate to impeachment? caller: i just really believe that i have worked all of my family toave my whole provide for our future, and i believe this man is going to strip it away, and i believe that he just is out of control. tim inet's hear from

wisconsin, republican line. you are next. caller: yes, thank you, pedro. i have called in before and said this before. i am not a big fan of trump's. i voted third party in 2016. these inquiries have gone nowhere. when they don't find anything, they pull out a couple of words here and there and say this is tantamount to impeachment. we heard that last lady. she could not give you a reason why to impeach him according to the constitution. that man from florida, he had it on the head. the first five or six people calling and have no idea what they are saying. when you asked that one woman with the impeachment -- i cannot remember who it was. he could not give you a reason. host: let me ask you.

is there anything within the president's conversations with the ukrainian leader that has concerned you to any extent? caller: i guess at worst it was bidenudgment to mention and investigation, but from what i understand, the president has a right to inquire about crimes that were committed in other countries with connection to our country, and i know not just him but other presidents have tied aid to other countries like south and central america where if they do not get their act together and sending all of this human trafficking situation, they are going to cut your aid off. it was really poor judgment to do that, but the only person that is actually on tape offering a quid pro quo of i

think $1.6 billion was joe biden , and his son was getting $50,000 a month from burisma, the corrupt energy company. some of these people are just incredible how they can roll out of bed in the morning and function. concerning the president's things about him and his family, in part it reads, our first president george washington could famously not tell a lie. president trump cannot seem to tell the truth. he slanders anyone he sees as a threat. that is why he is pushing flat-out lies in conspiracy theories against me and my family, no doubt to undermine my candidacy for the presidency. this time it won't work because the american people know me and they know him.

i will put up my integrity against the presence lack of integrity any day of the week. that is online if you want to see it. during this first half hour, we have asked you to tell us what you would tell your congressperson about impeachment. we will continue on in the second half hour. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. for democrats (202) 748-8000. 2.r independents (202) 748-800 you can text us at (202) 748-8003. from maine, bob, independent line. hi, bob. caller: hi. good morning, pedro. it should be obvious to most people that trump is iinently impeachable, however would counsel my representative

impeachmentead with because there is not a snowball's chance in hell that he would be convicted in the senate. him, he senate acquits will be crowing about being cleared of everything and how it was all a big hoax. can take a victory lap after the senate clears him. i think instead of going for impeachment, the house of simplyntatives should settle for a vote of sancture. in maine, senator susan collins, said i think the president made a big mistake by asking china to get involved in

investigating a political opponent. it is completely inappropriate. what do you think about her statement? caller: susan collins has tried herself aso position a reincarnation of margaret j smith, who was famously topplearty and helped to joe mccarthy. very solid much a republican, and despite the fact that she is regarded as one of the most bipartisan members of the senate, she really is not. she is going to be facing a very in thechallenge

republican -- right, when she runs again for office. bernard in new york, you are next. caller: good morning. give me a chance, i hope, because there have been many, many left-wingers who are completely misinformed. i appreciate to straighten it out. about a week ago, you had a gentleman who called in and said the democratic party is the communist party. i would like to add a caveat to that. the democrats are not actually the communist party because they are not smart enough to be communists. the communists are brilliant people. they have taken over most of the world. political correctness is their weapon. host: that was a week ago.

let's bring it up to here and now as far as impeachment and what you would tell your congressperson. caller: first of all, there is nothing in the constitution to impeach this man. second of all, why is a man like shifty -- listen, pedro, i cannot -- i live in new york city. everyone here is left-wing to the fifth degree. i would tell anybody that would isten -- how come shift still operating when this man has lied about the president? these lies continue on and on again, and nobody has the integrity to stop the lies. this man should be taken off. he should not be in charge of an impeachment when all he does is lie. host: that is bernard in new york calling on our republican line. did not putxter,

a name or city or state. if you could do that, we appreciate it. i would ask my representative e to ask president trump about lying about it, refusal to cooperate -- sorry, i read that one already. york,go to teresa, new north carolina. democrats line. them inyes, you say crestline, but it is really hard to distinguish between the democrats and republicans now. i suggest you would put up sovereignty or globalism. host: as far as what you would tell your congress person about impeachment, what would that be? caller: i would say this is nothing more than a raw attempt

on both sides about power. it is a power struggle that is not benefiting the american people. as far as what the president said about joe biden, this did not originate with trump. this scenario they keep talking about with china and ukraine, that was in the news a couple of years ago. it has been brought up before. it is not like he is trying to smear mud. this is known. host: kevin in new york, independent line. caller: hello. how are you doing? i would like to say hello to c-span and everybody in america. this is your wake up call. congressman,o my how can you go to work every day people tor job asking come in and get at the truth? in particular, don mcgahn and a litany of people decide not to show up.

our attorney general has a contempt of congress charge on him. we will never get at the truth. the truth is what we are looking for. host: when it comes to impeachment, what would you tell your congressperson? caller: i would tell my congressman, in defiance of our more sternst apply enforcement, $1 million minimum fines. i would lock these people up. the truth is what we are after. the truth is what we need to get at. if you don't have anything to hide, you should bring these people in. host: let's hear from cheryl in virginia, republican line. caller: your last caller is talking about getting to the truth. i would tell my congressman that they need to let these people, let all of the american people know that there are treaties

between our country and ukraine and china to help with investigations, and the president is the only one that can make that call. be hisust happened to political opponent. he was talking about biden because it was said he had broken the law. he was trying to get to the bottom of that. the reason they want to impeach the president is because they cannot be him in november, and they are worried about the supreme court because they know ginsburg is likely not going to be there. that is what it is really all about. i used to be a democrat. these people have become so crooked and lowdown and hateful. host: rob wittman is your congressperson. have you had a chance to talk to him about this? caller: yes, i did. he responded to me. that is what i have been saying to him. i have been saying it on tv this

morning. they need to let the american this is nothing but the democrats cannot accept that hillary -- and i am glad she did not win. nobody wanted her to win in the first place. host: if i may ask, what did congressman whitman specifically say when you asked about it? caller: i have not read the mail. he sent the email. i have not read it yet. i will say this, nancy pelosi and the rest of the democrats know that they cannot be the president. they are scared what is going to come out about what happened in 2016 under president obama's watch. host: that is cheryl in virginia. there is a story out of the ,exington courier in kentucky earlier this week, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell

said his chamber would have onchoice but to hold a trial president donald trump if the house votes to impeach. in a new ad on facebook, he makes clear that any impeachment attempt would fail as long as he remains in charge of the senate. here is what he had to say. [video clip] tothey finally convinced her impeach the present. all of you know your constitution. the way that impeachment stops is a senate majority with me as majority leader. host: you can find more of that on the senator's facebook page. the story is in the lexington courier journal. florida,ng hill democrats line. caller: good morning. idea where float an

there could be a possible exit ramp if a candidate wanted to get involved. it seems to me there could be a lot of face-saving and eliminate this accusation of guardrails and inoculate some of those cabinet members from wrongdoing. legislatorr as your on impeachment, what would you say? caller: i have not said anything to them. i have not made any attempt to contact them. i would say it is about time. it is just one thing after the other with this guy. it is just like what they investigated last time, which suggests maybe they did not catch him last time, but there seems to be a pattern. florida, benhill, sasse had this to say recently.

he said this about president rump, americans don't look to chinese commies for truth. it is a matter for american ports not chinese communists running torture camps. congressman adam schiff, the chair of the house intelligence committee, is running a partisan clown show in the house. that is his right. fortunately, in the senate cannot we are working to follow the facts one step at a time. host: clay is next, republican line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thank you. go ahead. caller: i want to say to my congressman, i want him to support the president. florida, john, had it

correct. that guy bob, maybe we live in two different worlds. you one of my worlds, my number one world. an hour, but i have a job. through the obama days, i did not have a job. that is the difference. i support this president. i think he is getting railroaded. i just tell my congressman to support this president, and we are going to bring it back to north carolina. host: what are your general thoughts on congressman tillis' current support of the president? caller: it is iffy. i see commercials that donald

trump wants us to support tillis. i don't think he is quite there all the way. he wanted the russia investigation. i am kind of iffy. i don't know if i want to go with another candidate during -- irimary, but you know options, and both no matter what, i am going to vote republican for sure. i think democrats have lost their minds. host: jeff from texas this morning saying, i would tell adam kissinger to read the mueller report and vote for impeachment. therod brown should tell president to step down before he is impeached. carolina, don't impeach

him, but vote him out in 2020. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we ask when you do, if you would not mind, give us your name, first name, and the city and state you live in. line,carolina, democrats polly. caller: hi. heel,who is a fellow tar does not seem to understand that tom tillis is a united states senator, not a congressman. i am confused by all these people that seem to think joe biden committed some sort of impropriety. that tape was filmed in 2015. tom tillis is a perfect example. call your representative and ask them why they did not make complaints about this in 2015 or 2016 or 2017 or 2018. why is it only a year before the

election he is bringing up this stuff about biden? it is not true. it is a distraction. call your representative and ask them why they let this alleged illegality go. host: have you had a chance to talk to your representative? caller: i have not. i have sent emails. tom tillis and richard burr were both there in 2015. if what biden was doing was so wrong, why were they silent for four years? host: did you get any responses? caller: i have not. i have written richard burr in the past, and it has taken him almost nine months to get back to me. i am not expecting an immediate reply. in carolinas polly beach. post stayrnie sanders

in the hospital after a heart attack. the sanders campaign has sought to project a business as usual attitude as the senator takes time away from the schedule. the $1.3 million ad buy will start tuesday in iowa. campaign aides have said bernie sanders will attend the october 15 debate. pointed to theve strong fund-raising as a sign of enthusiasm for his candidacy even as he sits in third place behind joe biden and elizabeth warned. sanders raised more than all of his democratic rivals in the third quarter. has $33.7 million in its

account, a sizable warchest. louisiana,ar from republican line. olivia, hello? caller: thank you for taking my call this morning. i wanted to respond to your question about talking to our representatives about impeachment. i have sent letters to senator kennedy and also to my representative scalise indicating i would like them to proceed with impeachment. the president has totally disregarded the rule of law. lied. continually he does anything he can do personally benefit himself and enriches family as well with his presidential position. they keep talking about joe biden. joe biden did nothing wrong.

what joe biden did was in the context of u.s. policy. that is what he carried out. he did not do anything personally for his son. they keep talking about his son , $50,000, he did not know nothing. there are a bunch of people who get jobs that don't have qualifications for the job them and they get it all the time. why are we picking on this man? host: as far as the specific acts that you would deem impeachable, what would you tell your legislator? what should you impeach on? caller: they should pursue impeachment on his quid pro quo request. he did it to ukraine. he probably did it to china and whatever other country he has talked to. he believes everything should be on a personal basis to that is not the way we should conduct our business is with other

leaders. -- business with other leaders. i am a fan of the impeachment corey. if the senate does not vote for impeachment, that is fine. we can put him out of office. if they do the impeachment breakout they can get all the information -- impeachment inquiry, they can get all the information they need. host: michael. your next. caller: from the beginning, emails, hillary talked about that too, what if she said, china, can you get his taxes? these people ever stayed in a hotel for $700 a night, that is what we are spending on these people being locked up in

detention centers around the country. host: what is impeachable in your mind and what would you tell your legislator? caller: i would tell them we are spending $36 million a day on these people down there. i don't know. it's just too much. next in virginia, democrats line. caller: good morning. i would say to my representative that all the democrats stop wasting my taxpayer money and my time on a witchhunt that has started since trump got elected. my representative, gerald a nancy pelosis lapdog and did not even attend does not listen to

me. he does not take calls from people that are against him. regarding joe biden, joe biden is the epitome of the swamp. he has been there forever. he is corrupt. .t is called power corrupts it is arrogance of power. we need term limits. it about the president's actions that you think are not worth looking into? caller: it has been a witchhunt from the very beginning. they spent $30 million trying to distract the guy from the beginning. he is an unconventional president. he is an unconventional candidate. they have no idea how to handle the guy. he has not broken the law. he is trying to weed out the swamp. host: nothing about the phone call with the ukrainian president or the whistleblower complaint? caller: the ukrainian president,

if you remember, transcript said he was not pressured. democrats are trying to cherry pick every word they can come everything they can because they cannot beat him at the ballot box. georgia, independent line. what would you tell your congressperson? caller: i would remind john had an interview with trump a few years ago, and he said if he ever lost his wealth, he would probably run for president. that is why he is not showing his taxes, and most of his businesses launder money through russians, and the thing about it. host: tell me what is an impeachable offense. caller: the emoluments clause. he is wiping his feet on the

emoluments clause. he wants out anyway. that is why he is doing all of this crazy stuff. he wants to follow nixon. he can ride away into the sunset. he made his money back. he told america if he ever lost his wealth, he would run for president. not pursue this on that then? caller: i think the democrats don't really want to impeach him. he wanted to impeach. he wants out. he has made his money back. host: from georgia, that is guard. in speaker of the house georgia did an interview with the atlanta journal constitution. you can find the story online. nancy pelosi rejected the president's demands friday for a formal houseboat to begin an impeachment corey after the president said his

administration would not with a probe. we're certainly not going to do it. it is wrong for a person to ask a foreign government for interference in our election. that threw a strong reaction from georgia republicans, including doug collins. it just goes to show you that you have a speaker of the house who has no consideration for due process. that is a blatant abuse of power and the people's trust in the process. .com is the website. let's hear from keith, massachusetts. caller: good morning. a quick one today. i'm thinking back to 2016, the clintons and everybody, they are dealing with the russians to put

out information about from all over the place -- trump all over the place and dossiers. what makes it a difference is they are not even trying to hide it. host: what would you tell your congressperson about this current effort on impeachment? caller: i live in massachusetts. .'ve got the wrong deal they are useless as far as i am concerned. host: thomas is next in illinois, independent line. caller: good morning. this is thomas in aurora. i am really independent. i take it as an insult if somebody calls me a political party because i am not. one year ago, if somebody would have told me that i was going to support trump, i would have told them that they are nuts. things have changed since then. the democrats have proven themselves to be so corrupt

between the kavanaugh hearings and now in this impeachment host:. farce you would tell your legislator what? caller: what would i tell my congressman? host: right. caller: my legislator is a democrat. it would be like spitting into the wind. i would tell my congressman in the senate as soon as impeachment got to the senate, i itld ask him to dismiss without even forcing it to go to trial while explaining on the impeachment ise a fraudulent impeachment, and pelosi denied trump his right to face his accuser or even know

who his accuser was. in refusing to allow a floor vote is denying trumps civil right to subpoena witnesses. that is thomas in aurora. from florida, democrats line. caller: good morning from naples, a heavily republican place. i feel like one of the few democrats here. i would make it really simple. i would tell them to get a fine. what i have seen a lot from your callers is a lot of a moral, this. it is really affluent here in naples, florida. it seems like people are primarily concerned with their money.

get more money back in taxes, so i am willing to overlook the fact that the has grabbed women by the genitals, and he is proud of it. host: when it comes to impeachment, what would you tell your legislator to base it on? caller: you know, the russia g was very fishy, and i'm not convinced there was not anything there, but i am really alarmed by the quid pro quo. saidsentially came out and i am going to withhold funding for your military unless you investigate biden, who is my political adversary, enemy. his behavior since the campaign has been disgraceful, and i think the vast majority of his

host: the last call on the topic . we will learn more about the process. that will be discussed with our guest coming up on this program after this break. kel mcclanahan will join us to discuss the role of the whistleblower in the impeachment inquiry. greenwood of the biotechnology innovation organization, he talked about efforts to pass drug price legislation. >> what you hear constantly are the skyrocketing drug prices. it's a misnomer. the white house

just said recently. in the last 12 months, the average price of drugs in this .7%.ry has gone down doug -- drug prices are not increasing. they are going down. the way the system works, some prices go up. sometimes when a drug is on its patent, when the patent and's, theecomes a generic and price drops. this is not the case the drug prices on the whole are escalating. when you look at what the pelosi destroy thet would future of medicine. what it says is we are going to that cost of drugs money and we are going to have a bureaucracy determine which

prices they should be. imagine your as an investor today and you're looking at 10 companies you might invest in. those will become a product that gets through the fda. you're going to risk a lot of money in that endeavor. then you will have to anticipate that if you are getting approved, some bureaucrat is going to tell you what the price is going to be. how would you ever invest under those conditions. you have to know at the end of the day you can set a price that will allow you to recover your expenses. the pelosi bill doesn't do that. it is so destructive. host: there is more to that interview. you can see the entire interview with james greenwood at 10:00 this morning right after this program.

you can see it at 6:00 tonight. you can also hear it on c-span radio. joining us here is kel mcclanahan, the executive director of national security counselors. he is talking about the whistleblower complaint. a little about your organization? guest: it's a hybrid organization. it's a public interest nonprofit. it's a law firm and also a nonprofit that does advocacy and we talked to congress and the executive branch and we advocate form. on the legal side, we represent people who are doing that kind of work. we specialize in national employment security law and your privacy law. information, publication review, security clearances and whistleblowers.

everything we've heard, what do you know about the process? one of the things that was exposed by this entire thing is the intelligence protection this,he law applicable to is highly technical and highly incomplete. pa is the only act that does not have any protections in it. that is being highlighted in this process as we see where it breaks down. i think one of the things that should come out of this, regardless what happens with the whistleblower or this impeachment or anything else, it fixld trigger congress to

the holes that are being exposed. in the act,ecifics where is it breaking down? guest: it for bids the inspector general from revealing the identity of the whistleblower. else froms anyone doing it. no one has done so. if someone in the white house or the cia or the doj were to expose his identity, they would not have broken any laws. things like the fact that there are no whistleblower texans under the act, the only protections that exist are under an executive branch document. that is not a statute. it can be undone with the stroke of a pen. , thetatutory version authorization act, is not

recognized by the executive branch as being binding. if someone were to retaliate against this whistleblower, he would have to talk to the manager. he would not be able to go outside the executive branch to court. host: we heard the end of last week that the whistleblower had contact with the committee. from what you heard, is there nothing -- anything improper about that? guest: given the nature of the contact was very light. i am looking to blow the whistle on something maybe involving the white house, how do i go through that process? the committee staff told him to the lawyer. that happens all the time. intelligence on has a procedure for this. they handle approaches like this

all the time. the director of national intelligence guidance suggests you can do this. to say that he did something wrong is to presuppose that every member of the intelligence community has an encyclopedic knowledge of the procedure of the act and not that they are normal people who would go to their committee and say how do i proceed. the committee says this is how you proceed. you go through the process and then come back to us. host: how much could the committee member tell the head of the committee about the exchange, the identity of the person? what limits the person from saying all those things? guest: the committee staffer? you would want committee staff to be able to be candid with their principles.

the only thing that limits that is practicality. they get lots of these all the time. many of them do not have the degree of detail you would expect. they do not have classified information. regardless of whether you agree with the classification, everyone agrees someone has classified this. he would not have been able to tell any of the details of the complaint. . don't mean the nitty-gritty he would not be able to say it was necessarily with the president of ukraine on july 25. he would say it was a phone call the president made with a foreign leader. that's the only thing that would not of been classified. when you get to that level of

generality, do you want the chair of a committee being bothered with it? because this involved the president it appears that they did. him we have aold complaint that this came in. certainld rise to a level. beyond that, adam schiff did not know the details. his lawyers didn't know the details until after the complaint was published. the only person who knew the details was the whistleblower and the people in the process he was trying to put it through. host: this is kel mcclanahan joining us. if you have questions about the whistleblower process, (202) 784-8001 four republicans, (202)

748-8000 for democrats. the dni process with the was, did you see anything wrong with the process? guest: the process worked the way it was supposed to up until the penultimate step. -- someone who is an employee must file a complaint with their inspector general or the inspector general of the intelligence community. they file this thing. then they say this is supposed to be in icwa complaint. they have to spell that out. the inspector has 14 days to look it over, to do a preliminary investigation to see if it is credible and see if it

pertains to urgent concern. is not a generic term. it's in the statute. something that is a flagrant violation of law or executive order, something involving an intelligence matter. anything that happens after of urgentretaliation concern. that, he goes to his director at the dni. he says i have deemed this to be an urgent concern. you have seven days to make your comments on it. that's where it broke down. instead of sending it up to the hill, which is mandatory under the statute, the dni instead

whetherto second-guess or not it was an urgent concern. that was not his call to make. the more we learn about that, the more it becomes fairly apparent this was basically him stalling to figure out if there was a privilege involved. that is a viable concern. this is not the way you handle it. if there is a claim of privilege, he should tell the here butve a complaint i'm not forwarding to you while we figure out privilege issues. trigger a combination to figure out how that works out. he acknowledges he has to send it forward. instead, he did and and around

around that. he called the doj and they wrote an opinion that said in a fact that he had the authority to second-guess the inspector general in charge of overseeing not thech is explicitly way the statute is written. that was the biggest thing until we found out the details. host: our first call is from florida. .ou are on with kel mcclanahan go ahead. caller: i have a couple of points. with all of his education in everything he knows, in what reality does secondhand information become , anyype of whistleblowing type of knowledge. you know that secondhand information is not allowed in court.

it's not allowed anywhere. with all of his education, he is biased. it is not a whistleblower. that's my first point. forrently the requirements a whistleblower was changed. nobody is talking about that. it was changed when this whistleblower. that's my first point. us orond point, any of anybody in government that would have gone through a two-year investigation with the fbi, bob mueller, hundreds of investigations, and nothing. i would say if they investigated

me for that long and spent that money, you would probably find something wrong with me. host: you've made a long first point. guest: this gets -- this is the question. it gets to a basic misunderstanding in what firsthand and secondhand information is. specifically what some people are throwing around as hearsay. there aren't a few different ways to look at this. you asked me to give you an example of how this would work here in someone calls an anonymous tip to the fbi. a drug deal isd going to be going on on the docks at 6:00 tonight. sends 70 to the docks and stops the drug deal. they arrest all the people.

they prosecute the people. anonymoushat the whistleblower in this context, the tipster is not known and no one knows his motives. no one knows how he got the information. it is completely irrelevant to whether or not they have the drugs and the suspects. how second out in from -- secondhand information works in the initial stages of an investigation. rulere correct that as a there are rules of evidence against hearsay in court. that is in court once you are before a jury. that does not mean that you cannot have secondhand information launch an investigation. or tell the police they meet -- may need to fall somebody -- follow somebody around.

may needhem they to look at a particular phone call. , most second issue that there trained are so many objections to hearsay in court, even in court it is rare that someone makes an objection. to the argument that the rules were changed, the rules were not changed. a form cannotere, change the law. says whistleblowers are allowed to come forward with allegations that the in general -- inspector general can negotiate -- investigate.

as a matter of policy, he will not deem something urgent if he cannot find some firsthand information. which he did. if you look later in the form, you will see that even in the they got this information firsthand, secondhand. that, they didn't even use forms. they use the template that was a complaint template. they shows that the use forms for a long time because they did not want to dissuade people from blowing the whistle based on a misunderstanding of whether or not they could provide secondhand information. host: roger from pennsylvania. caller: i wanted to make this quick.

nobody seems to be clear on this. the definition of bribery is an active receiving something of value in exchange for influence. value ing any item of an official legal duty. i wanted to explain that. host: did you have a question about the whistleblowing process? iller: i wanted to say that am for the institutions that have been developed over the --t 230 host: he hung up. that. where to start with the impeachable offenses, i think it's not entirely the best

idea to focus on the bribery item. different definitions of what is a thing of value. that, you could result in an actual impeachment trial in the senate because they disagreed on whether or not an investigation into hunter biden would've been a thing of value. that being said, high crimes and crime inors is not a the statute. it,lexander hamilton called a violation of the public trust. can be something that abuse of office or authority. in the case of

president johnson item number 10 of his impeachment articles was he made intemperate remarks about congress. that violated the public trust by casting congress in a bad light. if that were the standard, we would already be in impeachment. definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is so broad that many of the things the president has done, even just in this phone call, could rise to that level. think the phone call itself is the worst offense in the complaint. i think it's the measures they went to to covered up, to put it in an information system that can only be gotten to buy certain people with certain

access. access. that is something that is not supposed to happen. it was not classified at that level. it was clearly an abuse of the classification process. that in and of itself could rise to the level of an impeachable offense, especially if he did it for more than just this one call. host: kevin is next from indiana. if you see something, say something. that is the way i feel. on thegot to follow up leads where they take you. it is hearsay that brings you to that point. one question i have is does this , the way thens trump administration wants this

to go, does this mean the bidens will be subject to ukraine and chinese investigators? over to themg them if they broke laws in their countries? no one has looked that far ahead. administration, will they turn them over? finish your thought. caller: that was pretty much it. i believe in the whistleblower because if you don't follow up on the clues you have for the patterns you have, you are not doing your job. that's what happening. host: thank you. guest: that's an interesting point. that is something i had not thought about. ofhink that as a matter

practice, the united states tends not to surrender its citizens to other countries, except in extreme cases. it's one of the reasons we are not in the international criminal court. believernment does not -- the treaty has not been ratified out of concerns it might not ensure the rights of u.s. citizens. if the president were to do something like that to the me, there would be a tremendous uproar both in congress and in the legal community, it would set a very dangerous precedent. that i would have

grounds as a citizen to sue the government to stop them from surrendering me. tried, it might not go the way people are thinking. host: we heard from adam schiff that the whistleblower will testify. what is the process? what keeps this person anonymous? start, i don't have any firsthand knowledge of this. i have what you read it. committees donal have to deal with anonymous whistleblowers occasionally. they would have the same access that anyone in the police force would have.

they could put him on the phone. i'm presuming it's a him. they could sort of trust as much as i don't like using that word in the responsibilities of the committee members themselves. are rules, in the actual house rules for the intelligence committee about revealing information outside the committee. argue that if devin nunes, nothing personal against reveal thiso whistleblower's identity, he would be subject to censure by the house. says you cannot be

made to answer by any other tribunal for things you did as a member of congress. forress can penalize you violating its own rules. decide that the cost of violating those rules may be a great enough threat not to try to insist on that. ,ost: this is kel mcclanahan talking to us about the whistleblower complaint. if you want to read more about the work of his organization. the south carolina, republican line. be given enough time to get my thoughts together. statement, he said the whistleblowers contact

--h the intel community please give me time to get my point across. host: keep with your thought, ignore what you are hearing on your television. caller: you made the comment that the whistleblower going to the committee in order to get instruction on how to whistle blow. representszation whistleblowers and you are trying to tell us that you have no paperwork, no formal instructions laid out that these people can pick up and read on what the procedure is to be a whistleblower? find that out there in left field. host: go ahead. isler: no matter what party in charge of the white house or the government,

i think the delay from your television is interfering. iest: i'm smiling not because think it's a bad question. i would personally love this every member of the intelligence committee knew where my website was. i can speak for all of the whistleblower lawyers out there in saying that if we had the reached, people would not need to go to committees as they knew we were a one-stop shop for all of your whistleblower needs. we would be doing much better than we are. from this is coming across george stephanopoulos. he said the attorney representing the whistleblower second will represent a whistleblower with first and knowledge of the event.

he doesn't mention the name. for those of you watching, andrew is the primary attorney. he's a very good lawyer. he is a colleague of mine. i think that's wonderful. i think that every whistleblower deserves to have their moment to tell their story. that the unique risks that are first whistleblower is facing from the president of the united states, trying to reveal his identity and have him treated like a spy the way we did in the old days, entitled him to a bit of a respite. having someone else come forward

to support his story is only because as our previous caller ittioned, they can't argue was secondhand information regardless of how meritorious that argument might be. i think that it may turn out -- i'm not going to presuppose what happens down the road. it may turn out that after we have the complete story from all of the witnesses, it turns out that the president did not violate any laws or did not do anything that rose to the level or wasmpeachable offense not convicted of such. that does not mean that we as the american public are not entitled to have the full investigation with access to all the information we can get. host: this is from the

washington post front-page story. weeks, event statements by the president have bolstered the abuse of power complaint. , this goes back to one of the first points i report,ce you have the his motivations don't matter. democrat, he may be close to biden or john brennan. is joen't matter if he biden's neighbor. if he provides allegations that are substantiated, in this case by the transcript and statements later, his motivations do not matter.

a key part of the whistleblower law in the united states is the false claims act. this happened after the civil war. it sets a bounty on blowing the whistle on corporations who were defrauding the government at a time with the union army. are not filing these disclosures out of the kindness of their heart or their patriotism. many of them are doing it to get the bounty. they are doing it against their own countries. if you take motivation out of you have these allegations that have been substantiated, don't pay any attention to how they got to you.

they have been substantiated. i think it would be perfectly reasonable for the impeachment trial tond in the start with the readout, which is not a full transcript. all of the admission the white house is made since then, that is ground and move forward from there. host: clayton is next in indiana. caller: i am glad to talk to you. i have a question, actually i have two questions. white is the whistleblower make low but since i thel employee, if i call whistleblower line i have to worry about giving my name and i have to deal with repercussions?

it doesn't seem right to me that the president's whistleblower gets protected. questionsthat two question mark -- questions? caller: we are not protected. we have to get our name. on the to put it paperwork and deal with the repercussions. guest: i don't think there is a distinction there. were focusing on and many people who are asking the adam schiff does not know who it is. pedro does not know who it is. the ici g knows who it is. that's where the paperwork goes. the whistleblower protection act forbids any inspector general from revealing the identity of the whistleblower that comes to them

because they know that the inspector general has to know the identity of the whistleblower. if you were to assume that the inspector general did not know the whistleblower, why would that be in the law? , this is ourorgia line for republicans. this man is sitting here line. he knows that the whistleblower act was changed after president trump became president. he also knows that adam schiff is lying. he got caught in a lie about it. as far as being concerned about people colluding with other countries, why hasn't adam schiff been kicked off. he was talking to russians about dirt on trump. hillary clinton had the dossier. obama knew about this.

senators were colluding with russia. why aren't they doing anything about them? guest: i am going to ask you to bring her back up. host: she's gone. try -- i wasing to going to ask you why do you think the whistleblower protection act was changed since trump went to office? that was a rhetorical question. you would come back and say the form was changed. that explainsorm how you file a complaint does not change the law. the executive cannot change the law through a regulation. people seem tof think that a low-level bureaucrat can change the

requirements of the law simply by changing an index form. the reason this becomes a problem is -- let's take it out of the whistleblower context. let's say they were going to the fbi. there is a form you fill out to give a tip to the fbi. if someone incorrectly miss understood the law. used tom can only be report crimes that start with a through l. it would require you to believe you could not report treason. or murder. simply because the form only l.tioned crimes a through says yourn the form

crime start with those letters? the forms, this does not change the law. theas not talking about whistleblower. that's the fundamental misconception in this. host: we are going to show people the details about the act itself. that.you for what needs to change? what should be improved upon considering what we've seen over the last two weeks? guest: i'm going to step back a second. in 1996, there was a state department employee. he gave classified information about something to a sitting congressman.

the congressman went public with it. clearanceo had his wanted to revoke his clearance congress witht to this information without authorization. they asked the office of legal counsel can we do that. the office of legal counsel said yes. they spelled out all of these statute could or allow anyform member of the executive branch to go outside. result, the cia revoked his clearance. this set off a firestorm. that, weas result of got the intelligence community whistle blower protection act.

it originally said the president shall notify that they are free shall notongress and retaliate against them for doing so. that said youup cannot interfere with an employee's right to go to congress. that, another memo was written that said this was unconstitutional and would step over powers. congress backed down. both of those opinions that i just referenced are cited in the legal argument for why they didn't have to give information to congress. result, they changed the text of the whistleblower

protection act to take out the protections. instead, they set up this mechanism that is only binding on the director of the agency. that's the only place it has mandatory language. you shall forward it to congress. to ensure that the employees that congress was not going to give them whistleblower protections, at least they would ensure that if it went through this channel, it would get to congress. that has now shown to be a great mistake. should go back to the actne and make it it was envisioned to be. host: on the independent line.

caller: it doesn't matter to me if the whistleblower is exposed or not. the real issue is the actual transcript. i have noticed that in my opinion trump hasn't done anything wrong because we have that he hasmitting gloated with the fact that he got this counsel in ukraine fired. that deserves a legitimate investigation on our part. said wehe point that haven't been thinking this forehead. i've been thinking this far ahead. i like the idea that if there was a crime committed by the bidens, it should be investigated. it shouldn't be killed.

what are your comments on that? guest: there are two different parts that. the first is that it was investigated. -- i don'tstigated recall the document. it was investigated by the ukrainians. as of the time, the prosecutor was fired, that investigation had been dormant for at least a year. presupposing that this was never looked into. found to bet wasn't worthy of investigation. the argument,t is

we need toon that look into such matters is on its face a good thing. as a rule, you are supposed to look into allegations of misconduct. offered that this was during a phone call about foreign aid is problematic. degree that they might have been legitimately trying to pressure ukraine into doing an investigation, something people forget is the thing that vice president biden was talking about doing was

getting rid of a prosecutor who was known to be corrupt by most states,e and the united including many republican members of congress. not pursuingd of anything, vice president biden pressuring ukraine to get rid of him would have been against his own interest if this were true. he would've been pulling the levers to have the president ukraine dismissed the prosecutor was soft on corruption and not investigating his son. that in and of itself should make people question if there is merit to this. host: this is our republican line. hello. caller: good morning. hello?

host: you are on. trump is don't believe going to be impeached. even if he was, pence would take over. pelosi will never become president. we will never have a socialist and we will have a a democrat that will tax you up and down. they like to protect their own crimes onto republicans. they are not the same kind of people. there is no crime that trump has committed. somebody,talked to which is fine. a president can do that. if the democrats have their way, no president would be able to do anything to help the country because they will make a crime, even if it is not a crime. that's about it. there wasn't much of a

question there. i'm just going to take a moment and clarify something that a lot of people are conflating. equivalent of the a grand jury indictment. it is not removal from office. , theay the process works house launches an inquiry, which they have. they investigate whether or not they want to vote on to impeach the president. impeaching the president means charging the president with articles of impeachment. then sending him to the senate for a trial. the house will be the prosecutor. the members of the senate will be the jury. to say that he will not be are trying to say

i will think he will be removed from office. that may well be. think the good money is on him actually being impeached, charged. if more evidence comes out about more types of misconduct of this nature. host: the texts between the ambassadors, do they add to this? guest: the text that stood out the most to me was the exchange between bill taylor and gordon. bill taylor was saying i can't believe we are trying to hold up foreign aid for election reasons. there was a five hour gap. one, theon chong

ambassador to the eu rights this says igalese text that do not believe you have understood this correctly. the president has made clear he is only pursuing corruption wherever it may be found. me aboutop texting this. call these people. exchange inhat text a mob trial, you would say something happened in those five hours. thatast tax is realizing they may show up in prosecution or an investigation. i am going to go on record and say i don't know what you were talking about. taylor repeatedly refers to other conversations they say stop

putting it in writing is quite telling. host: let's talk to kevin from indiana. caller: good morning. gaveexample you just sounds like the russian deal. it seems like democrats always trail of cookies to link our president to doing something wrong. my question was obama's ukraine'stion had prosecutor's to investigate paul manafort. he's in jail. there is noif whistleblower protection, is it

protected through not just senators but government organizations? when the cia is the , that could be politically motivated because if a democrat were in office is all set up to do what democrats want done. we've got it come to some realization that there are different rules for people. they know everybody in every branch of the government. that's why we voted him in. you guys have to wake up that he wins because of what you were doing now. i think one of the points

that you made was kind of an important point. maybe not for the reason that you thought. assertion that you appeared to be going at was the cia who blew the whistle was politically motivated. someone had wanted to blow the whistle during the obama years, nobody wanted to blow the whistle on that. the meritsting into of whether or not the allegations about what happened , thisanafort are accurate highlights the point i was trying to make earlier. political motivation doesn't

matter. not blowowers tend to the whistle on people that they like. that's just the nature of the game. to speake are going out and try to stop activity that they don't approve of. people don't try to stop activity that they do approve of. it doesn't matter in the end run. it doesn't matter if the person boss didhed on a mob so because he wanted to take his wife away. it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter if he wanted to rise in the mob hierarchy. once thematters is allegations get corroborated,

the motivation is irrelevant. fades out of existence. the only time that anything the whistleblower has to say matters iser on in an investigation if he is the only witness to something. it is his word against someone else's word. we have enough evidence accumulated that this takes them out of the equation entirely. his story is done. he should have nothing further to do with this. host: can he go back to a normal life after this process? aboutsn't have to worry the actions he is committing? i think the ideal is yes. he did his patriotic duty. you go back to your job.

toldfederal employees are that it is their duty to report misconduct. the's the concept behind insider threat program that agencies run for security clearances. they are telling people if you observe misconduct, reported for the good of the nation. matter,as a practical it will be dicey for him to go back to a normal life. to staye manages anonymous the entire time with all of these people going after his identity. -- awkwardwalk around the water cooler. there are whistleblowers who continue to work in federal service after they have blown the whistle. that's rare.

the fact that it's rare, especially in the intelligence shows the weakness of the system. host: this is cecil in north carolina. caller: my hero is john dean. he was successful in removing nixon from office. he was a whistleblower that made nixon resign. i think the reason why he didn't go to jail, he was pardoned. i'm not saying there are no parallels. dean was allegedly part of

the misconduct. he was pardoned. nothing to indicate this whistleblower or the second whistleblower that's coming forward have done anything. this is where the parallel ends. you have somebody who is doing what they are supposed to. they have not mishandled information. have gone through the appropriate path. matter, nothing bad should happen to these people. differentey will is a question. host: the website for the national security counselors is national security law.org. kel mcclanahan joins us for this

discussion. thank you for your time. our conversation, we will hear from the general counsel for the director of national intelligence to talk about the whistleblower complaint. we will have that conversation next. we want to tell you about our cities tour. we feature the history of rapid city, south dakota. starts at 2:00 today on american history tv. you can see a visit into the black hills and hear about crazy horse. [chanting] in the black hills, i believe that, at one time or another, is that these of the rest of the world here somewhere.

it is kind of a mysterious place. but this place feels safe and mystical and worthwhile and important. [applause] today, live at noon eastern, "in depth" with journalist naomi klein. naomi: this was the hottest summer on record cured we have never had so little arctic sea ice. we have lost much of the great barrier reef. these are the major features of our planet, the arctic, the amazon, the great barrier reef, and we are, as my friend says, poisoning them. klein talks about her

books, which includes "on fire," logo," and "the shock doctrine." words,":00 on "after "washington times" national security analyst bill gertz talks about china becoming an economic superpower. he is interviewed by the former undersecretary of state for global affairs. bill: everybody is looking at the chinese economic threat, and as you mentioned, the white house was very successful in highlighting this threat. issue titledunning titl "chinese economic aggression." when you read the report, you understand why. >> watchable to be every weekend on c-span2. -- watchable tv every weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: joining us from the orca robert litt or he served as the former general counsel for director of national intelligence. a contributor to a blog. good morning. guest: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thank you very much. as your previous role as general what was the role, particularly when it comes to whistleblower complaints? do? does a general counsel wast: typically, when i involved, we did not get involved in whistleblower complaints. those went through the office of the inspector general and then to the director of the national intelligence, as you previous guest, kel mcclanahan,, explained. us ifld only come to there were some legal issue. we would never have a situation,

when i was there, where we had a complaint that would come from inspector general that we felt would not fit in the law in this way. some complaints that the inspector general felt were credible and would be passed on to the intelligence committee, and there were some complaints that the inspector general did not find credible, but i do not think we ever had a situation where the inspector general passed on a complaint, and the director of national intelligence looked at it and said, "no, this is not qualify under the law." , what do youguire think about the procedures he took in treating this complaint? guest: i think he behaved exactly as he should behave, and i confess to a little bit of prejudice here, because i did work at the office of national intelligence. i know people in the intelligence office, and i have confidence they practice in good

faith. the first is the statutes that talk about whistleblower complaints talked about matters of urgent concern, and those are defined as matters relating to activities, intelligence activities under the supervision of the director of national intelligence, and this complaint did not relate to an intelligence activity. it related to a foreign-policy conversation that the president had with the president of ukraine. number one, the first problem is this does not look like it would fit within the statute. number two, the complaint has statutes within the president, righte president have a to his communications over statutes with foreign leaders. so i think it was right of the dni, when he got this complaint, to consult with a department justices say, "what do i do here?" and when the office of legal counsel tells them, "this is something that does not fall

within the statue," that i think the dni is bound, because their role is to remove what the offices of the executive branch. i should point out that admiral maguire made clear that he wanted to turn this complaint the to congress, and all whistleblower act does is determine what he has to do something over to congress. the decision of the office of notl counsel was he did have to turn this over to congress, but that he worked to voluntarily turned it over to congress, and then it was turned over to congress, so i think he behave exactly as he should. host: the psyche of hearsay information involved in the complaint, first of all, what do you think as far as -- does that apply in the case as far as what we are understanding about the complaint itself and the information gained in it? guest: i think there are two points to make about that.

the first is that whether or not a complaint is hearsay really is not relevant. the question is -- does the whistleblower present information that is credible, and in this case, the whistleblower's complaint sets out the reason that he thinks the information is credible and why he thinks it is important. the other point is to the extent that other information has come out, it is clear that the whistleblower's complaint is not only credible, it is accurate. if you read the descriptor the whistleblower gave of the july 25 on call between president trump and president zelensky of ukraine, and then you look at the transcript of the call itself, the whistleblower's complaint is absolutely accurate as to what is in there. so i think the inspector general's determination of this is a credible complaint has been borne out by the facts. host: this is robert litt

joining us, served as the general counsel for the director of national intelligence. here to take your calls on the matter of the whistleblower complaint. if you want to ask him questions, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, and independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us, if you want, at (202) 748-8003, and you can tweet us your thoughts or questions, @cspanwj. mr. litt, we talked with the previous guest about the process of whistleblower events he has seen over the past few weeks. what have we seen over the process, and are changes necessary? guest: well, the process is still playing out. i think it is incredibly important that this person, he protection from retaliation that the whistleblower convictio protectt

promises. this person has gone totally buy the book, has done everything that the law requires, and if we cannot provide this individual protection from retaliation, that is going to be a message to everyone in the intelligence community that says, "don't follow the rules, but go and violate the rules, leak thanks to the press, go outside the process," and that is not a message we want to send to members of the intelligence community. so i think it is critically important that if this person testifies before congress, for example, that his or her identity is protected, that nobody leaks it out, and if the person's identity is revealed, that he or she is protected from absolutely any form of retaliation from anybody. host: abc reporting this morning of the attorney for the current whistleblower is supposedly another represent whistleblower, this one with first-hand information. secondact of the

whistleblower, if that is the case? guest: you mean the impact of the first whistleblower? host: correct, i am sorry, yes. impactwell, i think the of the first whistleblower has already been diluted by everything that has come out. we have a transcript, text messages, the admission from the white house that the transcript of this commerce nation and other conversations were handled , and there is a lot more to go in the complaint, and we have a lot more to understand exactly what is going on here. host: we have a handful of calls for our guest, robert litt, joining us from new york. our first call is from barbara, democrats line, from massachusetts. caller: good morning, bob.

flessner,rbara plesser's widow. i wanted to discuss foia's law. guest: and also an acquaintance caller:. i think it would be really give thebb, if you audience a view of the whistleblower act, the privacy act, and foia, all those three, them out to people, because obviously we are dealing with them every day on the front page of the paper. the other guest was asked ordinary in helping the people understand, and i hope that c-span would play that segment over and over again, and if bob one,lf as good as that because he answered so many questions, and gave so many clear distinctions, so i just go on "thel mr. kel,

view," tell the american people what you said, but do not say it all over again. host: all right, caller, we will let our guests respond to the first part of the call. go-ahead. guest: let us say, i have heard about half of kel mcclanahan's segment. he is and credibly informed and a very good communicator, so i concur with everything he said. passedas an earlier act to protect whistleblowers throughout the government, but it has carved out members of the intelligence community. they were not protected, because of the fact that they dealt with classified information. there was a statue tap that provided a specific avenue by which members of the intelligence community could provide information about fraud or abuse or violation of law to

the intelligence community, by going through the inspector general, and in the obama administration, when i was at i, we issued a directive that basically set up, number one, procedures to be followed, and number two, if whistleblowers are protected, they cannot get their clearances revoked, they cannot have their jobs taken against them, and it specifically says no person shall retaliate against the whistleblower who follows the procedures, and that is what is being invoked in this case, and that is why i say we need to demonstrate that this law actually worked, if we want to ensure that the intelligence officers followed the rules in the future. host: this is from fill in massachusetts, newton highlands, democrats, good morning. caller: hi.

thanks for taking my call. i voted twice for obama, actually went door to door for him. i amnot pro-trump, anti-trump in terms of who i would like to say next -- see next. but having said all that, i think you could see why a republicans, many independents, and to some extent, democrats may feel like trump is not getting a fair shake here. first, we have not heard from inspector general horowitz on what has been a not fully predicated investigation of trump during the run-up to the election and even postelection. second of all, the impeachment inquiry, which pelosi announced before the transcript was revealed, was not voted on yet. and that is, as you know, unprecedented. and third, if you actually read it is veryipt,

difficult to say that trump is dirt, as sog up many people keep saying. at least my reading of it is it is not a quid pro quo. so i think there are a number of challenges, people who are very supportive of this impeachment movement have to deal with. guest: well, thanks for your question. i cannot really comment in investigationhe into the russia interference into the election, because i was dni at the time and had some involvement in it. i will say, number one, what we had learned had shown that that was in fact an important valid and important information, because there was in fact interference in our election by the russians with the purpose of helping to elect donald trump. we do not know what effect they had on the election, but we know

that is what they were trying to accomplish. in terms of the current matter, friendly, i am not an expert in congressional procedures, so i do not know the significance of a congressional road, but i will quarrel, i think, with your suggestion that there is no quid pro quo shown in this transcript. because what happens is, and i have a copy of the transmitted front of me, you have president zelensky saying, "we are ready to cooperate for the next step. specifically, we are all was ready to buy more javelins from the united states for defense purposes," and the president "i would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot." if you picture someone who has been a financial difficulties and goes to a loans says, "i need to borrow $100,000," and the loan shark says "i need you

to do me a favor, though," it is not hard to understand that is a quid pro quo relationship. get into theou transcript, the text messages between the american diplomats, i think he had no doubt that he was being told if you want to havehose javelins, you wan to open these investigations, you have to look into hillary clinton's servers, you have to look into vice president biden's son. host: mr. litt, nbc reporting this morning that the attorney representing the first whistleblower now saying multiple officials will be making disclosures to the intelligence community inspector general, adding no further comment at this time. how unusual for more information to come back after the initial complaint is filed? guest: well, it depends upon the situation. what is unusual here is that the whistleblower complaint has become public. typically, these are handled on a classified basis within the

intelligence committee, and there may be further information that leads to further witnesses, but what you have here is a complaint that have become public, has been, i think, groundless the attacked, and so you have people coming out of the woodwork to say no, no, that is actually right -- and i am basing this solely on what marks zaid, the whistleblowers' lawyer, is saying. it is unusual to see this play out in a public forum the way it has. host: from st. joseph, michigan, catherine is next on our public in line. hi. caller: hello there, mr. litt. i agree with this gentleman from massachusetts. i just think that we need to protect our officials, too. we need to protect the president. and this whistleblower stuff, i think, has just gotten out of hand as far as leaking. i have never in my whole life -- and i am 70 years old, i have

never heard of so many things from the intelligence, um, leaking information about our government. i think there should be a law against that, too. i can see the need for whistleblowers, but i also see the need to protect our intelligence, our security, and i saw the other day a gentleman, and he was a senator, senator l-i-e-u or something -- and he was talking about the first-hand information that the whistleblower had, and he said, well, we do not care about second and third and information now, because we have a transcript, and it tells everything on the transcript arid well, i think that is a form of entrapment. i think they were fishing, and i

hate to see this continue on with our government. we look so stupid, and the democrats are just making the democratic party look stupid. host: ok, that was representative ted lieu who was on our program, and if you want to watch that, go to c-span.org. mr. litt, go ahead. guest: i want to make two points. first, catherine, i absolutely agree with you about the need to protect classified information. we do have laws that make it a crime to disclose classified information, and that is why there is this protection act that says you cannot go to the public with it, you have to go to the channels of the inspector general and into congress could i do not think anybody has suggested that the leaks here are coming from the whistleblower. i think he or she has gone completely by the book and has

not been responsible for leaking misinformation. the second point i want to make his i absolutely do not think it is right to characterize this as entrapment. this conversation took place long before anybody was talking about it. the transcript was made long before anybody was talking about it this person simply brought back to the attention, first of the inspector general, and then when the complaint was released, of the public, and it has turned out that the information is, in fact, accurate. i do not think there is anything wrong with doing that through channels. host: mr. litt, there is a question for you on twitter, -- and will -- the accuracy and meaning of the transcript be challenged, and if so, what point will they raise within them?" guest: well, there have been a lot of sort of general challenges saying, you know, this is -- what the whistleblower is saying is not

accurate, and there is no quid but i think there have been no fundamental challenges to what the transcript says except to those who say the transcript may not be complete. there are a couple of areas in the transcript where there are , dots, whichhree usually suggests something has been left out, and somebody said they actually read this transfer been a normal conversational tone, and where the conversation supposedly took 30 minutes, the transferability to 12 or 15 13 minutes, so the question is whether the transcript is complete or if something was left out. host: the white house itself that it is not a word for word transcript, it is memos taken on the call. guest: yes, the understanding is the first draft of this is prepared by voice recognition software, and then it is edited

by people sitting in on the call. reporting of the conversation as it exists now. it is not preserved. host: at a not mean to interrupt you, if you wanted to continue your thought. guest: no, no, that is fine. host: we will go to carol in new jersey for robert litt. caller: hi. i have a few things to say. first of all, i believe that this so-called investigation should be given up on the spot. it is nothing more than a rolling coup than they are engaged in, and it has been going on now for over two years, prior to the man even being nominated, they started it. over were several meetings those years, and they were attended to by everyone from thennell, brian, besos, publishern post," the

of the "new york times" -- host: ok, caller, only because we are talking with the whistleblower complaint, and we have a guest here to do that, do you have a question or comment particularly to that? caller: yes, where is the "where" there? where is the transcript of the phone call all they are doing is? implying something over and above what was said. that is all i have to say. carol, thank you. guest: there are two things, and it is important to distinguish between them. the first is, as a factual matter, did the president of the united states, either directly or through intermediaries, such as rudy giuliani and some of our diplomats, did he convey to the saysnians a message that if you want to have a meeting with me, if you want to be able to buy defensema material

from us, then you need to commit to investigating joseph biden and his son. did he do that or not? at the where you look text messages as the transcripts. the caller does not seem to think that is established there. other people think that they get is established.the next question is, if he did that, is that an appropriate or an inappropriate thing for the president to do, and is it sufficient to warrant impeachment? that is a decision congress will have to bmake. host: in technicality, what is a quid pro quo? how was it to find, and how is it applied? guest: sure. qu is either express or implicit -- and that is important, that it does not have to be explicit -- but an promise, or implicit that if you do something from a, i will do something for you, and

i will do something that is within the powers of my office, so in this case, the allegation is, and the inference from the transcript and the other information, is that the president said, "if you open these investigations, that i will have a meeting with you, and i will sell you defense material." host: from maryland, democrats line, you are on with robert litt, who is joining us from new york today. bernard, go ahead. caller: actually, i am in maryland. how are you today? host: you are on. go ahead. thanks. caller: i just want to talk about the whistleblower, we will find out eventually if the facts are true or not. the bad news is, i believe there is a better than 50% chance that we will know who it is, his picture or name will come out, and we lose, because adam schiff will most likely put it out for us. thank you, adam, for all the work you have done. host: mr. litt, any response?

guest: well, i certainly hope that does not happen. i think the goal here should be whether or not you agree with what the whistleblower has said, i think, for the reasons i stated before, it is important that the whistleblower be protected. i think it would be terrible if anything happened to him, either professionally or personally, as a result of a leak of the whistleblower's identity. host: under the umbrella of what a whistleblower is allowed to do, what did you make of the initial contact with a staffer from adam schiff's office? or the committee, i should say. guest: i do not think there is anything wrong with that. my understanding -- and again, we are getting this all secondhand -- but my understanding is that the whistleblower originally went through processes at the agency where the whistleblower worked, and that was not going anywhere, so the whistleblower decided to

invoke the protections of the whistleblower protection act, and also decided to go to the intelligence committees about this, but was not sure how to do it, so reached out to the staffer and basically said, you know, how do i do this, and gave only a generic description about what it was about rather than the full description of we have now in the complaint. is the case, i do not see anything wrong with that. it strikes me, again, as somebody who was struggling to do the right thing in the right way. host: from massachusetts, becky, calling us, republican line. go ahead. you are up. caller: yes, good morning. my question is about whistleblowers. that the cia, where the whistleblower is, gives out information on how to , if you areorm going to whistleblower on somebody, what the process is,

who you give it to, and instead congressionale congress and asking a person even whether they are a staffer or not, how they fill out the form or who to go to and what to do, i would assume that that is already -- why would they go to somebody like that? they would either know that they should go to a lawyer and then fill out the form and how to fill it out. this is something -- it is just like sexual harassment is discussed. how do you handle it? what is the process? and i would also like to know if this, uh, second whistleblower, who the lawyer is now defending, if that person went through and made out a form and sent it to -- orr they get, so whether they are just part of the original whistleblower's

thing. host: gotcha. that is becky in massachusetts. becky, i think, you are underestimating how hard it is for somebody in the intelligence community to do this. people in the intelligence community are very, very rules-bound. it is very important for them to go by the book, because they understand their job depends on it. it does not strike me as either unusual or wrong for this person to have gone to get outside help, to make sure that he or she was following the law, and, frankly, it is hard for me to understand what is wrong with this. even if the person did not have harm fromwhat is the him having done so? your secondgetting question. me?o, can you remind

what?you know i did not jot it down to it i apologize. if they are going through the process and it is laid out, they have attorneys representing them, why would you bring an attorney into this? her second question was about the second whistleblower, and we do not know whether this person has filed a complaint and gone through the process, or whether the person's consulting an attorney for the purpose of but it isomplaint, not surprising in a situation where the president of the united states has been accusing the whistleblower of treason and demanding to know who the whistleblower is, it is not surprising that somebody would want to seek legal assistance before going ahead and throw themselves into this maelstrom. host: from maryland, james is next, democrats line. hello. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i have two points. the first one is, is very first

trump said on national tv, "russia, if you're listening, check into hillary's is one of the things right there. the second one is, it is imperative that the principal whistleblower be protected, because, if you remember, donald trump said he could stand on the corner and shoot somebody, and nobody would even mind it, but you know, he has got his if he puts something like that out, they might take up the whistleblower, if their identity is shown. so it is very dangerous and very imperative that they be protected. that is all i have to say. thank you, and have a good day. host: mr. litt? guest: james, i do know that the wyersleblowers' la have expressed concerned if his or her identity is revealed? don, your next call,

are next, hello. caller: the protections are there for those who are , primary sources, if their names should come up. that is all. guest: yeah, that is a good question. those people will not have the same kind of protection. it is a matter of good conscience that they ought to be protected, and a somebody who has reached out to investigators, they ought to be protected from retaliation, and we ought to see how this plays out. host: when it comes to the acts of this whistleblower and others, particularly, are you

concerned about the level of future whistleblowers, if they being played out having a chilling effect, or will it be an emboldening affect? guest: well, that is a really important point, because i think if it turns out that this whistleblower, having followed the procedures of the act, is not protected, i think it is going to be a real deterrent to people from following the procedures in the act, and i think the next person who comes across a significant matter would be far more likely to go outside and to leak the information and to violate the law in the same way that the concernedller was about, and it will ultimately cause much more damage to national security than protecting this whistleblower and encouraging people to follow these procedures going forward. host: this is robert litt joining us, by the way, the general counsel for the

director of national intelligence. let's hear from jeff. jeff is from south carolina. thanks for holding on in myrtle beach, republican line, go ahead. forer: yeah, thank you taking my call it i had three quick points. he said earlier that the fact that the congress did not take an official vote for the impeachment and rita not make a difference, basically, but isn't it true that since they decided to do that, that limits the republicans' ability to make subpoenas? and two, he said that the whistleblower followed all of the rules and went to the i.g. and all that, but isn't it true that he went directly to the committee, and that schiff lied about that? third, he said it was up to congress to make the decision whether it was an impeachable offense, but really, they already decided that in 2015, so that is why i agree with the other caller, that it is just an ongoing coup. thank you.

guest: if i remember the questions come on the first point, i did not say that it was all right that there was no vote. i am just not an expert on congressional procedures. i do not know whether they needed a vote or they do not need a vote. they are moving ahead with an inquiry, obviously, before they actually in peace the president, it will require a vote and full hearings in congress, and publicans will have whatever rights are given them under the congressional rule. i should take notes, because i am not sure i can remember the other questions at this. host: he talked about the subpoena ability, too, but you may have addressed that already. guest: yes. host: let me show you a viewer who says this -- all citizens should be protected from false is a fusion, including the president. he is the one having his constitutional rights violated. guest: i am sorry, i do not understand in which way the president's constitutional rights are being violated. beingrice of his are

violated by an inquiry into his conduct? host: we will go from that to prince george, virginia. craig, good morning. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call this morning. i have one point, it has to do with donald trump's behavior. his first move was to go to saudi arabia to me the -- hello? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. like i was saying, donald trump's first move was to go to saudi arabia to visit the prince, the same one who had the reporter murdered. now the whistleblower has exposed most of what he has done, and he has been doing it in open. it is not like he is trying to hide it. and he is attacking the people who are actually going to do their jobs.

he is actually intimidating and trying to bully these people. host: caller, i don't understand, what is the question you have for our viewer -- or our guest? caller: my question is, as the whistleblower, not only are you going to appeal for your job, you also have to appeal for your life based on the behavior of the president we have. host: ok, we will leave it there. is there a concern or at least a fear that it whistleblower should have going into this process? guest: well, the whistleblower should have that kind of a fear. says yes, theyer have concerns about the personal safety, as a result of some of the things the president said, and i can only reiterate what i've said several times before, that i think it is paramount that this whistleblower be protected, regardless of whether or not you think the whistleblower is accurate or whether or not what the it isent did is wrong,

important for the process of our government that people feel free to raise concerns without the prospect of retaliation. we may find the concern is unfounded at the end of the day, but the whistleblower has to be able to bring those concerns through appropriate channels. host: when you hear the president initially, when the story was breaking, talking thet the chance to meet accused or at least know who it is, is that within the well of alm ofility -- re possibility for a president or at least a reasonable request? guest: it should not be. the whistleblower wants to remain anonymous, and the whistleblower is entitled to remain anonymous. regardless of the complaint, we have the transcript, we have the text messages, the committees are subpoenaing witnesses who have actual knowledge. what is important here is what

the facts are, not who the whistleblower is. host: this is from indiana, republican line. mark, you are on with robert litt. hi. caller: hi. thank you for taking the call pure i think all republicans should be ashamed if they are supporting this dictator in the making. the guidelines the investigators for his crimes when they tell us what he did. then he says the reporter, the whistleblower, they are wrong. all republicans, your party, our party, is going to be we can bringed. the guy has -- weakened. the guy has no economic strategy, and then spreading it out. i also believe the withholding of a was not only for the bidens, but it was for the russians. this guyhat ever sees in the last three years talk about the russians should realize what his ultimate goal is, and i him ashamed of republicans. i am ashamed of lindsey graham at other people there.

john mccain ronald reagan are rolling over in their graves. host: ok, we will hear from mary in austin, texas, democrats line for your next. caller: good morning. taking my call. i am going to start off by saying it is so disheartening to hear how divided we are as a country, and i attribute that directly to this president, who goes in rallies and denigrates democrats. he is the president of all americans, not just republicans. but to this point specifically, and you kind of aggressive to a certain extent, the question is -- what does, what trump is tong, with regard denigrating the whistleblower and threatening him, and also talking about possibly exposing him, what does that do to our national security? ad also, if you could address leaking administration -- isn't

that because they lack trust in what is going on around them? guest: well, i cannot speak to the motivations of individual people who are leaking. i basically believe it is wrong to leak classified information. i think it damages the national security for individuals to take it upon themselves to determine what should be public and what should not be public. i think it is much more appropriate to go through channels. the congressional intelligence committees all have clearances, and it is important to provide information to them. your first point, that the country is extremely divided, and that is a very dangerous thing, is absolutely accurate. host: larry in michigan, hello. this is larry from milford, michigan. hello. caller: hello, mr. litt. i feel like you're probably a like mind with mr. mcclanahan, and he said if someone sees

something, they should say something. and the motivation of a leaker is not important, it is reporting the crime. thati am bringing up is there seems to be a great run of hypocrisy with the police, because we haven't chief law enforcement officer with united states, he thinks he sees in another country by a former vice president, and we have people that want to prosecute him for saying something because he sees it. whatever, you can give me. thank you. guest: sure, i mean, there are 2.0. the first is -- two points here. the first is that there are evidenceutely on the corruption on the part of the vice president. nohas beeukrainians have found

violation of law. it has been widely reported that when biden asked the ukrainians to fire the prosecutor, this is the prosecutor who closed the investigation. he was not fired because he wanted to investigate, he was fired because he did not want to investigate this, among other matters. so i do not think there is hypocrisy involved there at all. host: this is robert litt joining us, the former general counse to the director of national intelligence. is a council at morrison at forrester. , thanks for your time this morning. guest: thank you. host: for the remainder of our program, we will let you comments with the question we started with this morning. when it comes to the impeachment process, what would you tell your congressman to do about the process ?republicans , (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. an independents, (202) 748-8002.

we will take those calls went "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> today, live at noon eastern, "in-depth" with journalist naomi klein. naomi: this was the hottest summer on record. had such little arctic sea eyes. we are losing huge swaths of the amazon. losing the great barrier reef. these are major parts of our busting and we are them. she discusses her books. join in on the conversation, life with your phone calls, tweets, and facebook messages. at 9:00 eastern on "after

times" "washington national security columnist bill gertz. looking at theis chinese economic threat, and as you mentioned, the white house is very successful in highlighting this threat or they issued a report with the stunning title called "china's economic aggression," and there was a huge policy crisis with bureaucrats saying oh, we cannot save economic aggression, but when you read the report, you can understand why. >> watchable tv every week and on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. would you tellat your legislator, your congressperson about impeachment ? (202) 748-8001 for republicans, democrats, (202) 748-8000, and

independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to text a thought, do so at (202) 748-8003. our twitter feed is @cspanwj, and also, our facebook pages available at facebook.com/cspan. takes ahington post" look at some democrats who have encountered the topic of impeachment will home during the congressional recess, adding that "what has emerges clear evidence of political backlash."

host: so what would you tell your legislator about the process that is playing out? let us know on the lines, context, and also on our twitter and facebook feeds. from st. petersburg, florida, democrats line, frank is up are spared what would you tell your congressperson? caller: well, sir, i would tell him to be careful what he says or what they say when it comes time for the whistleblower to come in and make his statement, be the reason i would say afraid is because i think president trump has his own whistleblower on that panel, the congressman from california, steve nunez. my wife and i call him paul revere, because he could not

wait to run down to the white house as the late hour and divulge information to the president that he should not have, so i would just be careful, and i am worried to death about the whistleblower, because i would be shivering in my boots after what trump wants to do with him, if they do find out who he or she is. carol andlet's go to greatest in, florida, republican line. caller: yes, thank you. i think this is another example of the democrats' desperation to try to move president trump, who is doing a fantastic job running the country, and i think the republican congressman will stand up to their president and do the right thing. host: ashtabula, ohio, laura, independent line. caller: hello. as a veteran, there is something i wish every single american, every republican,

democrat, independent, every politician, everyone working in the white house, every single soldier takes those to defend the cause of vision with every life, and they go over there, and they risk their actual lives, not just a paycheck, not just their jobs, their lives to defend the constitution. why can we not expect our politicians to at least do the same? instead, they hide for their money, and they hide for their job. that is a disgrace. they cannot even do what a young private, 18 years old, does. gene, genes go to and california, democrats line. caller: hi. i think a lot of people do not realize, a lot of people don't know, who say "this is an attack on trump," it is illegal to receive anything from a

foreigner that is of value in connection to an election. that is different from what the senators did, from what biden did. and fox, they cut the last four to five seconds off of the video with biden, where he was bragging, he says, "ask obama," he said "you do not have the authority." it was not for his own benefit. host: so what you would tell your legislator is? caller: excuse me? host: what would you tell your legislator about impeachment? caller: i would tell people to .atch something other than fox these people do not believe the truth, they just want people to believe them. host: all right, let's hear from philip in ohio. republican line. hi. caller: hello? host: you are on, yes. caller: i would like to have people call mr. schiff and say if he is so concerned about the whistleblower, what happened with lois lerner and what happened with her?

nothing. i guess it depends on what party is in power at the time. host: why do the two equal each other?why is that ? caller: she was doing work for the democrats or the obama administration on republicans, and now the same thing is happening, and now everybody is running around with her hair on fire that they have a whistleblower up there. host: dave in mount laurel, new jersey, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. that was an interesting comment, the caller before me, and to be blunt, that actually spurred something on my mind. that whistleblower ultimately went to court with the irs. they were sued, they lost, they settled. 9-0 --reme court ruled barely 15% of all rulings are 9-0 -- that the administration weaponize the iris against their opponents. host: so what would you tell your congressperson? caller: i want them to take a

vote on impeachment, open everything up, bring these individuals in, have equal representation for both parties to question these individuals, and let's have all of the facts out, not terry pegula facts, not pull stuff that does not matter, or creates the storyline that they want to promote. host: and you are saying that is not going to happen until the full vote is taken? caller: that is correct. they restrict their ability to ask questions. does that seem fair to you? don't you want all of the information. host: florida, republican line, we will hear from william. william, go ahead. caller: yes, i would like to say met processn peace is a farce. as far as the newspapers and fox just about all newspapers and newscasts are democratically-owned enterprises, which gives us a false narrative on the republican party.

host: so what would you tell your legislator specifically about impeachment? caller: everything, including the obama administration. up allo back and open the files on the obama administration and see what happens then. host: we will go to debbie, debbie in ohio, independent line. hi. caller: hi, pedro. thank you for taking my call. i would like people to know that i would tell my legislator that the person you just had on was a lawyer for james clapper, part of the deep state, so we have that going on. he is there to tell you all the things that nobody else is going on. that man who was fired as a prosecutor of ukraine, he put an evil outcome i think it is rudy giuliani who is investing all of this, but he got fired because he was pressure to drop the investigation, and he would not do it. you had ontleman before, i would like my legislator to know that he met with at five-hour delay, maybe there was a delay because they smelled a rat. this is how orchestrated set of go, and that is one thing the

american people are really getting an education on, is how orchestrated set ups are really put into place for this president. thank you. host: scott is in massachusetts. democrats line pure scott? hello? you are on. caller: yes. trump in peace, that is for sure, but as far as the impeachment goes, i hope it is long. host: why is that, and why would you tell your legislator that? just wanted to be long, drawn out. i wanted to be in the public view your i hope i can see the transcript of what the conversation was at some point. i just want it to be long and drawn out, and i want the people to feel involved, because when 2020 rolls around, i want everybody just to be disgusted. i think biden is guilty, too, so. host: all right, that is scott

for massachusetts. bruda off of twitter, saying when it comes to her advice to legislators or his advice, "impeachment, go for it." service, bradg told myton, ohio, "i congressman, mike turner, that he should aggressively and brought mindedly support impeachment inquiry." "i support a special committee made of love members that have not been in the spotlight. deborah, hide. -- hi. have complete control. they want this to be a single-party country. they want to get rid of the republicans feared they tried a few weeks ago to try to do him.

they were behind the caravans, i can bet you. it comes to the actual impeachment process, specifically, what would you tell your legislator? caller: i have not been in touch with him yet. host: what would you tell that person? caller: i just had a heart surgery. their goal is to get rid of the republican party. so the democrats have complete control as to what is going on in those countries. host: all right, got that, because you made that point already. we will go to rate in maryland, republican line. hi. caller: hi. i am from north dakota, actually. host: sorry about that. caller: and we only have one congressman to represent our whole state, by the way. anyways, to mr. litt, earlier, he made a comment. readsd the transcript and, like, 12 minutes, if you read it word for word, but the conversation took 2 30

minutes. what i would like -- maybe you would have the answer to this -- that conversation was a translated conversation. the president of ukraine spoken russian. the president spoke in english. so if that conversation was translated and interpreted, how do we really know what was said? because the transcript cannot be word for word for english, if that makes any sense to you. host: so what would you tell your one congressman about the impeachment effort? caller: well, i would tell him absolutely -- there is just so much disinformation being put out, and i do not even think we can take that transcript seriously, because it was interpreted. anyways. i just don't like the whole thing. host: ok. let's hear from alabama, and then a line. philip, hello. caller: hello there. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: yes, sir, i would like

to ask my congressman, "where is hunter biden at in all this?" why won't hunter and joe biden come forward and talk to the or your public on abc show and clear all of this up? host: we don't have time to read it, but if you go to the "washington post" today, joe biden has an op-ed, taking a look at the last two weeks, particularly statements the president has said about him and his son. you can read that at the "washington post" website. brian and alabama, republican line. caller: yes, sir. my congressman, to tell him, look, number one, trump, you know, mr. president trump, people need to call him that and stop disrespecting him, because when they do that, they are really shaming the country. but i want my congressman to do one thing first, you know, mr. president trump, bhe ain't broken any laws.

do they not understand that? i don't get that. they need to start respecting the country of bit more. now, if you go by faxcts, that is where i like, facts, they need to go by looking at what he has done and people holding him back, he is really the best president we have ever had. host: ok, that is brian from alabama, the last call of the day. for our program tomorrow, which starts at 7:00, we will be matt schlapp of the american conservative union. fallon of demand justice. we will talk about his group's efforts to push progressive court reform. and as we focus on battleground states and campaign 2020, says richardson joining us and our last half-hour from cleveland.com.

he is their lead political reporter, and we will talk about how these 20 campaign is playing out in the battle of ohio. all of those topics, plus your calls and a look of the papers tomorrow at 7:00. we will see you then. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> next, newsmakers. games greenwood, president and ceo of biotechnology innovation organization which represents biotech companies and research organizations, talks about new drug pricing legislation pending in congress. after that, house speaker nancy pelosi, house intelligence committee chair adam schiff, and president trump, comment on the house impeachment